Jollibee to continue expansion of food brands

MANILA, Philippines — Jollibee Foods Corp., a Filipino-owned global food conglomerate, remains open to acquiring more brands but will focus on growing its portfolio of 13 brands for now.

In a virtual round table discussion, JFC chief finance officer Richard Shin said the existing brands under the Jollibee Group have room to grow.

“We bought these businesses to start creating scale and opportunities. It’s never say never but we believe we have enough solid brands now and we believe these brands have not reached their peak yet,” Shin said when asked if there are plans to acquire new food concepts.

Another focus of the group now is to solidify focus on four key segments – burger, chicken, coffee and tea and Chinese cuisine.

“We believe that at least for the next three years, the segments we have chosen collectively provide somewhere between one and one half trillion to trillion US dollar of value,” Shin said.

“We are not the world’s biggest company, we have our limitations and so in order to win it’s really about focus and so we shall focus on these four segments,” he said.

Jollibee has dropped PHO24 from its portfolio, saying that it does not fit into its growth strategy.

“We decided we would get a better return for shareholders and the company if we were to focus really our energies on our top brands such as Jollibee,” Shin said.

It would continue to expand globally particularly in North America and China, aside from local expansion, with the goal of bringing the share of domestic and overseas businesses at 50:50 down the road from 60:40 in favor of the local business, Shin said.

In the first quarter, JFC reported a net income of P2 billion, down by 10.6 percent amid continued macro challenges including inflation.

On the other hand, operating income surged 80 percent to P3.6 billion while consolidated revenues rose by 31.1 percent to P79 billion. System wide sales in the Philippines grew by 36.7 percent and International SWS grew by 23.3 percent with China growing by 20.7 percent; North America by 20.2 percent; EMEAA by 20 percent; The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL) by 18.7 percent; SuperFoods by 28.5 percent and Milksha by 182.6 percent.

Moving forward, JFC is targeting 550 to 600 new stores this year.

At the end of March 2023, JFC operated 6,542 stores worldwide: Philippines (3,281) and international (3,261).